[WIP] Thirst, a Dragon Age mod focused on C&C

Which is within 30 minutes of playing by my last count. The original, unpatched .exe was allegedly far more stable.

When it's done (in a few months, hopefully)... and for what it's worth, I also make no promises about the eventual release quality. For all I know it'll be a buggy mess with terrible, hackneyed writing and characters, boring gameplay and so on. I don't have testers for either gameplay or technical stuff. At least it's been fun, and I get to say I've made a mod with nearly as many environments as the main game itself.

As for the game version... sorry, I made this with 1.04 and 1.05 (the latter is just a DLC activation bugfix, so I doubt anything changed in-game or in-Toolset). I can't guarantee Thirst will work for anyone using an older game version.

I've also got to say... I torrented Dragon Age 2 the other day because I was bored, and aside from it being even worse than I expected (basically no plot, environments are boring and sparse, combat requires no strategy, characters are all annoying author insertion/wish fulfillment), the thing that struck me the most about it is how awful the quest design is. If it wasn't for all the map transitions and random mobs you have to get through on the way, most of these quests would take about 2 minutes to complete. The complete lack of meaningful options (no skill checks, or even real dialogue options) and consequences (no matter what you do or say, X attacks you or Y runs away) is almost offensive. From a creator's perspective, it's just shockingly lazy and shows that either the devs had absolutely no time to build the game or just did not give a shit about it, because there's no excuse for how awful some parts of it are.

No voice at all, unless I can hire a bunch of actors. I wouldn't be satisfied with stuff recorded using cheap desktop mics (like some other mods do). Frankly it's just a lot of extra effort on top of everything else and I haven't written the dialogue to be economical to begin with (I have a lot of small variations based on what the player's said/done, etc.), so it'd be yet more work. Maybe I'd revisit it in the future if I had the opportunity, but not right now. I think voice acting can add a lot, but unless it can be done well, I'd rather not do it at all.

As for top-down looks, I can't really guarantee anything (I didn't design levels with that in mind) but at the same time I make sure that the top-down view is fine gameplay-wise, and that there aren't any visual glitches (placing black boxes etc. to hide "out of view" clipping issues). The Dragon Age official campaign levels actually have a lot of glitches like this (being able to zoom the camera out through walls is very common) so I'd like to think I've taken more steps to avoid those problems.

Another update:

I've been working about 10 hours a day for the last few days straight on getting things up and running. First 25% of the game is done and the early game inside the city itself is taking shape. I'd like to give a quick example of how quest structure and progression typically works in Thrist, as well as how I'm handling choices and consequences.

Upon arriving in the city, the player is accosted by gang members, who demand tribute for safe passage. The player has the following options in dealing with them:

1) Pay them money to pass.

2) Attack them and kill them (difficult, but not impossible).

3) Use a cunning check to deceive the gang members (claim you're a city official etc.).

4) Persuade them into letting you pass in exchange for a service (begins another quest involving extortion of a nearby merchant).

5) Intimidate them into letting you pass.

Fairly standard stuff. Where it gets more interesting is in the fact that one of the player's early goals is to make ties with the criminal underworld in order to learn information on a particularly prolific crime lord. These gang members are one of the player's links to the underworld, and taking up their quest opens up a series of three additional quests, all of which have just as many options and similar consequences.

In other words, if you say the wrong things, you won't necessarily just take the easy way out or the good or bad path, you'll also cut off or open up different options that affect your progress through the game. While it's possible to complete most quests in a single play-through, depending on your decisions in handling these sorts of encounters, you're going to find that the information you seek out will come from very different sources.

Sometimes even the way in which you choose something has an impact. For instance, if you turn the gang members' offer down, or kill them, you'll just have to look elsewhere for your answers. However, if you first accept, then change your mind and turn on the gangers, you'll actually gain a third option from the merchant as thanks for getting rid of them - this is unique to this particular series of event. Note that not all quest chains are created equal - some, like working for the gang members, will have more smaller jobs, while others might be one large task to complete, or you'll only get the information you need after some time has passed. This is a conscious choice to avoid the problem of "you can choose who you want to do fetch quests for, but you're still just doing the same old fetch quests"; it also improves replay value, and gives different character builds more value (as progress won't be too heavily weighted towards the diplomat or fighter).

Now the (semi) bad news:

I have a job interview at a game developer coming up in a couple of days. I don't know how it will go, but if by some chance I do get hired, it will mean I'll have a lot less time to spend on Thirst, at least starting in a week or two. I'll definitely keep working away at it, but I can't guarantee as swift a release as I would have liked to. Just wanted to give a heads-up while I was writing this.

You missed two options on that gang dialog:

6) Charm : Seduce the gang leader to let you pass for special services.

7) Charm : Seduce all gang members to let you pass for special group services.

Also, don't forget that these options should be totally genderless as to cater to a larger player base and avoid unnecessary criticism.

Sea, if you need a hand, I'd be up for helping out. Don't have much experience with the DAO toolkit, though. (This is Green Fairy btw.)

A Fallout classic, for sure.

I hope you don't get the job

I've probably said too many negative things about BioWare and EA. They likely have my e-mail address blacklisted by now.

Ah ok that makes sense. Would placing small mounds of earth or mud where the wheels enter the ground be easier than placing decals? But as you said it's just a tiny thing anyway.

I thought the engine was fine. To me the issue is with Bioware's artists and level designers. Throughout the whole of DA:O the only location I thought was decent was that temple with where you get the urn or ashes or whatever and the blood mage specialisation, though even that I thought could be improved (from a level design point of view, graphically and artistically it was fine).

But the rest of the game though, ugh. All the people regardless of race look awful. Towns might have seemed promising when you first enter them (e.g. Redcliffe) but once you explore the place it's just meh. For all the crap DA2 gets, at least Kirkwall was a better city than the handful of Denerim zones.

Dragon Age has a good art style, I think. I really like some of the lighting - it's not very advanced but artistically well-done. The environment art is also great. The big problem is character models, which are generally a bit strange and have odd proportions (plus gigantic hands). Other minor issues come in where its engine shows its limitations (large open spaces without much detail, like the mountaintop where you fight the dragon), or simple oversights (poor UV tiling on environment textures leading to ugliness). That, and too much of the game's palette tries to rip off The Lord of the Rings films... lots of brown.

Another quick update:

I've been working basically non-stop on Thirst for the last few days. The result is that the first third or so of the mod is now complete - the introduction is done, and one of the major story arcs can be played through in its entirety. There's still a lot of work to do (including a few difficult bug fixes), but I'm pretty happy with how things have turned out so far. Yes, I follow the classic "X goals to complete before the endgame" model, but frankly it works pretty well given the story setup and makes things much easier to coordinate for me. Right now it's looking like about 3 hours of gameplay, so extrapolate from there and hopefully the finished version will be somewhere around 6-8 hours long.

When I'm reasonably sure things are working, I might decide to release a demo/beta that covers the first third or so of the mod, both for design-related feedback and bug reporting. I couldn't guarantee the quality of such a release, but it's an idea for people who want to take a look at it.

I like the idea of the plot, but I'm worried by the comparison to PS:T - and PS:T is my favourite crpg.

The reason is that it is one thing saying 'wow - I'd love to make a mod/game with lots of beautiful writing, and wonderful dialogue-driven choices and interaction'. It is another thing having the expertise (as in training AND experience) to do it.

Think of it this way: say you had an idea for a really good gaming engine you wanted to make. You wouldn't just start making it - you'd think seriously about whether you can actually code enough to put it together, and of what expertise you'd need to outsource. Similarly, say that you want the animations to have a certain motiff to them for thematic reasons - the first thing to come to mind is whether you actually know how to animate. I'm guessing that there won't be a lot of complex adjustments to the engine, or even necessarily a significant insertion of new artwork (new creatures, animations etc) or new graphical style - because you sensibly know that you don't know enough about how to do that, and so you're best off focussing on what you can do well.

But every indie developer around thinks they can write. And not just any writing - ALL writing - that they can not only put together quest lines, but they can mix overarching plot with political/social/character themes, and friendship arcs/romances, and character arcs and getting both a plot and thematic consistency from the quests feeding into the main plot. Yet whilst I always read indies talking about their experience with graphics, animation, scripting, coding, rule design and so on, I've never heard an indie say 'Well I studied several literature units at uni as an optional stream separate to my computer science course, and I've been working really hard to get experience at both DM'g and writing - I've ran a few campaigns from beginning to end now, and I've finally managed to get a short story published with an indie publisher in a compilation (man all that advice in the fuckteen versions I had rejected was helpful though) and...'. Ok, that's over-writing it a bit, most people don't go on that much, but you get the point.

Thing is, for most indie games - and definitely most indie mods - that doesn't matter one bit. Not at all. You can make a great little game just by having some good combat mechanics, nice art style, handy interface and so on. There's been some damn fine dungeon crawlers by indies where the writing doesn't matter one iota.

But from what you're saying, the quality of the writing matters a lot for your project. Okay, you're making a mod, not a game - this is part of the learning process and all that. But if you want to spin this into making more ambitious projects (whether future larger mods or indie games) of this style, you will benefit hugely if you treat writing as an area of expertise, in which you're going to want to practice, learn a bit and get better at, just like animating and coding. Trust me in saying that you don't want to go down the path of writing fanfics (or anything for that matter) on the net, with a mixture of 14 year old girls and folks who gush over crap as your training path. I'm no expert - I do write for a living, but in academia, and not in a creative discipline either (analytic philosophy). Moreover, my writing is absolutely godawful, and if I was in an area where you had to be able to write well, rather than getting published for your ideas and having editors clean up your shitty grammar, I'd never have got a start. BUT I've seen a lot of writers, potential writers and wannabe writers go through in my time, and whilst you don't need to have studied literature (let alone creative writing) at uni or anything, so long as you read a LOT, you do need to practice the stuff. For a gaming medium, where you want to allow for player choice within a world and set of mechanics (but without being simply a choose-your-own-adventure-book in disguise) that means doing a lot of DM'g in addition to reading (and with your reading, try to read both pop/genre novels AND high-literature, you'll get benefits from both). The easiest way I know of for practicing your writing is to find a publisher that (a) does short stories and (b) gives written/emailed criticism of submitted work, and start sending them your stories. Not so you can get published, but so you can get free and regular advice from someone who actually knows what he/she is talking about. But I don't know whether that would really help with crpg-writing: most of the good writers in crpg-development come from a DM'g background instead of a writing one, but I don't know whether that's a reflection of the industry (folks with expertise in game design who happen to write on the side), or of what makes a good author of computer games.

Otherwise, looking forward to it - hope it's going well.

Thanks for your feedback, but I guess you haven't been reading my updates over the threat (understandable, I really should fix the initial post up a bit). Over the last few months I've realized that I just don't have the finesse or tact as a writer to pull off that initial Planescape-inspired "philosophical and profound" vision, nor is the story I want to tell and the setting the right place for that kind of writing.

Instead I'm going more for something closer to Fallout or Fallout 2 - give the player a lot of choices based on his or her skills, and provide consequences to the major decisions. All quests have some sort of skill checks (be it poisoning someone, stealing something, etc.), and while it's not ideal because Dragon Age's engine isn't quite as interactive as others (I have to do most of it through dialogue), I think I'm already giving more choices than most other full RPGs provide.

The size, scope or quality of everything can't really match those other games, but even so the actual "physical" size of Thirst is already a good part of the original Dragon Age's. You'd be surprised just how much time is spent running back and forth on filler quests and fighting random mobs through corridors. All RPGs are going to have a bit of that but a lot of those 40-80 hours of Dragon Age are cutscenes and dialogue, running from A to B, etc. rather than doing anything really "important" to the gameplay itself. You've got memorable sequences and good encounters in between, but plot-relevant actions move forward at a snail's pace in comparison. Even if I can't match the same level of quality, at the very least, I'm content with being able to avoid the filler that bloats a lot of RPGs.

Quick progress update: I've got a few more environments done (city guard barracks and prison, most notably), and have been going on a pretty big polish and bug-fixing spree, to the point where I'm now pretty comfortable the first half or so of the mod is playable (though there are still plenty of issues to work out). I spent all day trying to get an NPC to say something different depending on how the player opened a particular door... fun times.

Couple screenshots from one of the new areas. No gameplay here yet, but maybe soon:





Also, one final addition I've been working on this evening: minimaps. I picked up some map-making techniques a couple months back, and while I don't profess that my creations are all that great, they're nicer than the ones that the Toolset spits out by default:

Since you asked so kindly:















There are still some issues to work out. Some places have roofs and overlapping objects like archways that I need to figure out how to cut away, and you might notice a floating particle effect or two from a hanging lamp that I forgot to remove. Reminds me to check for that stuff again before claiming my environments are finished.

Thanks for the feedback!

And now, for everyone: exactly what do you think of dungeons? Fact is that Dragon Age's engine is geared towards combat and dialogue, and little else, so combat's one of the "best" ways to add content to the game, but of course I've been striving for a very heavy non-combat focus. I do, however, want to keep combat legitimate as an option, and still keep it fun. I'm getting around to this part of the project now (have one finished, but a few later-game ones still to do), so it's fast becoming relevant.

To that end, a few questions:

1. What is your ideal dungeon length in a storyfag-focused mod? ( combat encounters, completion time, etc.)
2. Do you like puzzles in dungeons? (Kinda cool, but hell to do scripting for)
3. How complex and developed should non-combat options be? (short and to the point, or lengthy and involved?)
4. Do you prefer linear or non-linear dungeons? (and, linear in terms of layout or progression?)

I don't know if I'll be able to satisfy everyone, but I'm trying to get a feel for what sorts of features to include, and whether dungeons should be more geared towards combat or more towards puzzles and environment interaction. Trying to come up with good story reasons to include both in one place is difficult, as well, so it's best if I decide early on before coming up with too much context for each. One alternative I'm thinking of is to have one "combat dungeon", one "puzzle dungeon", and one "dialogue/C&C dungeon" but that might not work too well either.

I'm hammering out the first "real" dungeon at the moment (99% done I guess) and am trying my best to balance the options. It's a bit difficult, because I have one non-combat solution which relies upon the player having solved a previous plot point. Unfortunately, other non-combat options like persuasion don't really fit with the situation, so I'm also not sure how to deal with that at the moment. It's not like I have to give the player a non-combat option for everything, especially considering how many of them there are otherwise, but I don't want to make players feel like their choices aren't validated.

Any thoughts are appreciated!